Say what you will about this remake, but this has to be the gutsiest Sunday morning kid's cartoon I've ever seen.
Censors always draw the ire of anime fans, from the terrible to the downright laughable, but whether you hate them or are indifferent towards them (I don't think that there's anyone out there that likes them) you have to admit that they do serve a purpose since there are things that just can't be aired on TV. This goes doubly so for anything that airs on morning TV, since that's considered kid's territory. So to be perfectly honest, Killua's first onscreen kill in the Hunter x Hunter remake was scary to me precisely because there was no giant black bar covering the majority of the screen. With giant black bars, you still know what's going on. This is a completely different type of censoring, one that heightens the mood. They knew that they couldn't show that on TV. So instead, we get the implication. I feel that the basis of good horror is the fear of the unknown. In this scene, instead of it being spelled out to the viewer, newcomers to this series see this and think, "What did he just do?" To me, this is a much scarier tactic.
Images from Crunchyroll.com.
Creative censoring is somewhat a lost art with all those obnoxious lightbeams and black bars. Despite having seen the first anime and read the manga, this scene shocked me the first time I saw it. I wasn't even expecting them to include it!
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